The Yard Sale Itch & A Chance to Win Something

With the weather here in Colorado finally starting to warm up and with summer fast approaching, I am getting the itch. The yard sale itch!

Source: google.com via Megan on Pinterest

I have been dying to go to some yard sales. It has been so cold on the weekends though that there haven't been many going on. But now that it is finally starting to warm up, they are popping up everywhere. And this past weekend, we were driving out of our neighborhood and spotted one up the street. I of course stopped, and the Hubby rolled his eyes, to which I replied, "You married me, so deal with it!" He laughed and said, "Yeah, I know." Unfortunately we didn't find anything, but the sight of one just made me giddy. 

Yard sales are one of my favorite things about Spring and Summer. I love going from sale to sale to see what kind of bargains I can find. And I especially love when big neighborhoods or communities hold big sales. It makes it so much easier to go from place to place. And you never know what you might find. I have found some pretty incredible things at yard sales for dirt cheap. And when I know people that are having babies, I love hitting up yard sales to see what I can find for them. You wouldn't believe the amount of baby clothes and other items that you find at yard sales.

And this year I am excited because we get to participate in our communities yard sale in a few weeks. I have been going through the house like a mad women and deciding what is going up for sale. So far we have a pretty big stash of things in the garage that are ready to be priced and taken home with someone else. It's kind of funny because we want to get rid of all this stuff, but I am also wanting to check out everyone else's yard sales. So of course, I am making the Hubby take that Friday off of work so that he can sell our stuff, while I go look for more stuff, haha!

Okay, now for the fun part. I want to hear from you guys. I want to know what one of the best deals you have ever scored at a yard sale has been? Or what's the craziest thing you have ever seen someone selling? Or what is one of the craziest things you have sold? Tell me about your yard sale finds in the comment section below and I will draw a random winner to win a $25 gift card to a place of your choosing!!!!

 I will draw the random winner on Friday, so you have to comment by midnight on Thursday. And please leave an email address with your comment. So sound off in the comments below for your chance to win! Good luck everyone and I can't wait to read about your finds!

Prayers for Noel's Family

I was going to do a weekend recap for you guys, but this seemed more important to get out there today. 

A couple of weeks ago I told you guys about my friend's little girl Noel and how she was only expected to live a few hours. Well Friday she celebrated her 2 week Birthday! Which was amazing according to the diagnosis they gave her before she was born. It was a miracle and that is the only way that it can be explained. 

I write this next sentence with an incredibly heavy heart. On Saturday, Noel was having a hard time breathing, so the Hospice Nurse gave her some morphine to ease her breathing pains and within an hour of her receiving the morphine, Noel passed away. The Lord took her to be with him. Heaven now has a beautiful new angel. 

Source

In the two weeks that Noel was here on Earth, she had nothing but love and faith surrounding her. She reached so many people and impacted their lives, many of those people are those that do now even know her parents. She restored faith in others, including myself. She is a true testament to what the power of prayer can do and how God uses us in ways that we can't even imagine. God has used this little girl to help restore faith in others, and I have a feeling that he isn't done with little Noel. Her story will continue to reach and impact so many. 

Please send your thoughts and prayers to this amazing family. They are a truly incredible family and I can't even imagine what they are going through at this time. But all we can do is offer our prayers and hope that they find peace and comfort during this difficult time. And if any of you feel so inclined and are able to do so, but don't feel that you have to, a fund has been set up to help this family cover the costs of the care that Noel received and also to cover funeral costs. You can find that HERE.

Thank you everyone who has sent your well wishes and prayers this families way. They are appreciated more than you could ever know. 

Friday's Letters

Happy Friday everyone! 

Dear Rain,
I am glad that you are here and all, but did you really have to make the baseball game absolutely miserable yesterday? Don't get me wrong, you can rain on my lawn all day long, it needs it, but if we have outdoor activities, I would appreciate it if you would stay away until we are done. Thanks!

Dear Person Who Turned In My Sunglasses,
Thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I seriously can not say thank you enough. These are the only prescription sunglasses I have and not to mention they were effing expensive($400). So thank you so much for doing the right thing and turning them into lost and found at the ball park yesterday!!! I wish I knew who you were, so I could give you the biggest hug ever!

Dear Nicole,
Thanks for putting your name into the drawing to win The Best Seats in the House for Lee Brice at Country Jam! And thanks to whoever actually drew your name out of that box! And thanks for wanting to take me!! I am so excited! I can't wait!

Dear Coworkers,
I am excited for our lunch break today. Thanks for coming with me to find a pretty orchid for my office. It's the little things ya know!

Dear Followers,
Thank you for reading every day. And thank you to those that have been linking up with myself and K for our weekly fitness link up. And thank you to those that have been commenting on our link up and showing us such great support. You guys rock!

Dear Best Friend in Hawaii,
Can it be September already? I just want to see you and I want your baby to be here already!!!! I can't wait to meet your little one! And I can't wait to get your online baby shower put together! I hope that it turns out amazing!!

Dear Wizarding World of Harry Potter,
I am totally geeking out after you announced your expansion plans! And a trip is already being planned for the beginning of 2015!!!! I can not wait to see the new area and I especially can't wait to see if you can actually ride the Hogwarts Express!!! Aaaggghhhhhh!!!

Have a great weekend everyone!!!

Bringing Sexy Back Week 7 Link Up

It's time to link up for this weeks edition of Bringing Sexy Back! with myself and K from Down at Fraggle Rock! Grab the button, link up and tell us how you did this week!

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Okay, let me start by saying that I feel like I am finally getting into a good rhythm with all of my exercising and eating. I finally feel like I am at a point where I am not starving myself and I feel good about the decisions I am making. And I find myself actually wanting to make good decisions. And when I don't make a good decision, I immediately regret it, which I think is a good thing.

I have also gotten to a point where I am talking myself out of going to fast food places. I mean everything sounds delicious, but then I stop and think about what the consequences to my body will be and I ultimately decide against it. This is big for me! I don't remember the last time I had will power like this. It's amazing how your mind changes when you start trying to live a healthier lifestyle and have an awesome support system(that's you guys!) around you.

Now on to how I did this week. As far as eating goes, I was under on my calories almost every single day. I think the only day that I wasn't was last Friday and that was date night, so I went a little over on my calories. I have kept up with logging my food in myfitnesspal every day. And I have actually been completing my entries! Whoop whoop!

As far as exercise goes, I haven't been as active as I would have liked, but I am still exercising. I have been to Zumba twice in the last week. And I have gone on a 2.5 mile walk twice within the last week as well. So four days out of the seven isn't bad. I am hoping to up that next week though. I finally got a call from that personal trainer that I won sessions with, so hopefully I can get those scheduled within the next few weeks!

Let's get to the good stuff. The measurements. I lost a little bit more weight since last week. Not as much as I wanted to lose, but hey, a loss is a loss and I will take it. I have lost some more inches in places too!! Here are this weeks measurements.

So overall I am down 14.2 lbs!!!!!!!! I am extremely proud and excited about this. It has been pretty slow going, but I feel like I am finally starting to pick up some steam and hopefully before I know it, I will be down 20 lbs and then 30 and so on!

This week has just been one of those that I feel good about everything. And you want to know what added to that feel goodness, my clothes are starting to get big on me. My jeans are too big in the waist and in my thighs. All of my Nike Dri Fit workout pants are getting too big on me. Almost to the point that they are starting to fall down during workouts, which isn't a good thing, but at the same time it is! 

And I saved the best part for last. I went into Victoria's Secret this week to by a Colorado Rockies shirt from their Pink Loves MLB line because the Hubby and I are going to the Rockies/Yankees game today(Hubby is a Yankees fan). I can usually fit into the L of the Pink line, but most of the time they are pretty tight. Every single shirt I tried on was a L and they were all baggy on me!! Baggy!!!!!! Aaaagghhhh! I can not even tell you how damn excited I was. I knew at that point that I am really doing a good job and that all of this hard work is so worth it, especially when you feel that damn good about a shirt fitting!

Okay, goals for this week. Keep up with the healthy eating and logging of food in myfitnesspal. Exercise more than 4 times this week. Drink lots of water. And last but not least, do more core workouts! My stomach needs to start getting smaller! And stat!

Okay guys, that is all I have for Bringing Sexy Back this week! I need to get my butt off the couch and get ready. Like I said earlier, the Hubby and I took the day off to go to the Rockies/Yankees game and of course he wants to be there for batting practice, which is two hours before the game starts. Maybe I can walk up and down the stairs at the stadium and get a workout in, haha! 

Make sure you head on over to K's blog and see how she did this week. And don't forget to link up! We want to see how you did this week!

Chef's Warehouse Sale

This past weekend the Hubby and I went to the Chef's Warehouse Sale. They have these like twice a year and have a ton of great kitchen products at deeply discounted prices. 

Sometimes we go and we find nothing. Sometimes we go and we find one or two things. But this is the first time that we have gone that we spent quite a bit of money because we found so many great deals! 

I was so excited to see how great of a selection they had on Le Creuset products, not to mention that they were amazingly cheap. We got a 2.5 quart covered casserole dish for $35 and a glass pitcher for $10. I looked both of these items up when we got home and the casserole dish is normally $75 and the pitcher is normally $40. So we got a great price on both of these pieces! I just wish they would have had better color selections. This wasn't quite the blue I wanted, but I still loved it!

 And I may or may not have a slight obsession with Le Creuset now. Why do I always pick such expensive things to be obsessed with?! I guess I will just have to keep looking at these sales to find more of their stuff so I don't spend so much money on it!

We also found some other items that we have been wanting to get for a while and that were on our wedding registry, but just never got around to buying. The first one being a Boos Butcher Block Cutting Board. Usually when they have these at the warehouse sale they have cracks in them or they are bowed, but this one was in perfect condition. And we only paid $60 instead of $100 for it! We also found a "used" Calphalon pan with a lid for $10!!! We pulled it out of the box to look at what a "used" condition meant and there was nothing wrong with it. No scratches, nothing. It looked like it had never even been used. 

We also found these cute nesting bowls for $5 that were different colors. And we can always use bowls in our house. And we also found a cooling rack for $6 and a steamer insert for our pans for $3!!!!!! I still can't believe how great the prices were on some of these items! The Calphalon pan is the one that gets me the most!

I would say we did a pretty good job this time around. We found some great things, some that we needed, some that we didn't but couldn't pass on the price. Overall it was a great day of shopping for us! What do you think of our bargain items?

Cross It Off The List

Last week I told you guys that we crossed one of the items off of our summer project list. Well, I FINALLY took some pictures of the finished product this weekend, so I can finally share with you guys what we did!

With the weather being so freaking nice two weekends ago, I decided early on in the week that I wanted to get some yard work done. And since the bushes that I already hated in the front of the house were definitely dead after the winter, I decided it was a perfect weekend to get those suckers out of there. 

I planned on making the Hubby do the whole thing, but I am not the type of person to just stand by and watch, so of course I got in there and helped out too! So we headed out to the front yard to get started. We decided that we should probably cut the bushes down to the smallest possible stumps that we could so that it would be easier to dig them out. 

And of course we didn't have the tools that we needed to do this. No joke we were out there for a little while using a circular saw(don't laugh) to try and cut these things down. The Hubby finally got tired of it and decided to go pick up some shears from Home Depot. By the time he got back, I had 2 of the 4 bushes cut down. But when I got those shears in my hands, it took me maybe 5 minutes to get the other two cut down. They didn't stand a chance!

And now for the fun part. Digging the damn things up! Talk about a pain in the ass, holy crap! Who knows how long those bushes have been there, because those roots went down super deep! Yikes! It took us a good two hours to get two of them dug up. And after that, we were pretty much spent. So we decided to wait to dig the other two up the next day.

On Sunday morning, we got up super early and got to work digging the other two up. It definitely didn't take as long to dig up the other two. Thankfully. But it definitely was still a struggle, especially since we were still pretty spent from the day before. 

After we dug up all the stumps and filled the dirt back in, it was time to move some river rock from this pile in the backyard to the front so that we could cover up where the bushes were. This took a while to do, but I am glad that we did it. It looked so much better after we did this. 

So here are the before and afters.

I personally think it looks better, but that might be because I hated those bushes so much. And considering that they didn't make it through the winter, they didn't look green like in the before pictures. They were this ugly brown and they just looked awful 

What's sad is that I look at the picture of the house last summer when we bought it and I look at the yard now and I hate that the grass isn't as pretty. Part of it is because we had a pretty cold April, but the other thing is that we can only water two days a week, which is frustrating. I just hope that we get lots of moisture soon so that our grass will look like that again!

Well, that is what we crossed off our summer project list. As far as manual labor goes, that was one of the harder things to get done, so I am glad that we did it. And the best part, we only spent $23 on this project for the shears! Yes! I love when projects are cheap!

Okay, that's all I have for today. I hope your Tuesday is awesome! Have a great day everyone!

Weekend Recap

I hope you all had a great weekend. Ours was pretty busy, but we had a lot of fun. 

Friday night we came home from work and then headed out to have a double date night with our friends. We met them at Old Chicago for dinner first. After dinner, we walked over to the movie theater so that we could get in line to get seats for Iron Man 3! We were all pretty excited to see this, so it was very important that we got there early to get good seats because we knew how crazy it was going to be. Thankfully we got their an hour before the show and got in line and got great seats. And the movie did not disappoint! It was AWESOME!!!!

Saturday morning we had to get up at the ass crack of dawn to get ready so that we could be out of the house by 7:30. My little Sister was graduating from college and it was a 2 hour drive to get there, so we wanted to make sure we had plenty of time to get there and find the school.

We got there with about 20 minutes to spare. We went and found seats in the gym and then waited for my family to get there. The graduation started around 10 and lasted for what felt like forever! Around 11:45 my Sister was officially a College Graduate. Very proud of you Sis!

The family during the Ceremony

Her fellow graduates and accepting her Diploma

After the ceremony we headed back to her dorm to have cake. Or so we thought. What we didn't know was that she hadn't completely packed, so of course we all were running around trying to finish getting her dorm packed and cleaned up so she could check out. I think she did that on purpose. She knew we would help her. Smh!

A very tired Rylei!

After packing up her gazillion pairs of shoes and everything else she owned, we headed out to have lunch. We went to Pizza Hut, which isn't the healthiest, but the Hubby and I split a half pan of pasta and had salads. I tried to eat as healthy as possible. After lunch we headed home. The one good thing about a two hour drive to and from my Sisters school was that I got to read while the Hubby drove. By the time we got home I was already over half way done with "The Silver Linings Playbook" which I had started when we left that morning.

Once we got home we just relaxed the rest of the night. I finished reading my book, which didn't take very long. And I highly recommend reading the book. It was very good. And the movie is a lot different than the book, but still worth seeing. Hello Bradley Cooper! And then we made dinner and then just sat around and watched TV the rest of the night. We were exhausted by the end of the day.

Sunday we slept in. Once we got up and got around we headed over to Chef's Catalog Store for their Warehouse Sale. They have them like twice a year and you can usually find some pretty good deals. We found a lot of good deals this year. I am working on a whole other post for that though, so I will tell you more about what we bought later.

After the Warehouse Sale, we headed over to Hacienda Colorado for lunch. I mean it was Cinco De Mayo after all. The food was delicious as always and we ran into our friend Pelka while we were there. Which was great because it was his Birthday so we got to tell him Happy Birthday and chat for a bit.

After lunch we headed home. Then I made a list and left for the grocery store. After getting all of my shopping done, I headed out to have dinner with my friends. We went to this delicious BBQ place near my house. All I have to say is yum. And then after dinner I came home and did some dishes and just tried to clean up around the house a bit before we headed to bed.

It was a crazy busy weekend, but it was great spending time with my family and friends. I hope that you all had a great weekend too! Did you guys do anything fun?